The main purpose of this article is to discuss certain details and inconsistencies with the European Motorola flagship product - the Motorola Milestone.
Lately Motorola has started to advertise the Milestone aggressively and comprehensively. "Unlimited Possibilities" and "Smart-phone with no limits" are listed as the main features of this device.

Granted, using this device really gives the feeling of a milestone, when it comes to design and finish. The overall quality is very good.
The phone itself is also a milestone in other aspects: Android enjoys a growing community of fans, main points being the many possibilities to customize the Open source OS. The main highlights of this scene are Custom ROMs, which can change every possible aspect of the phone, from the UI appearance to adding new kernel modules and new drivers. The custom ROMs also add a possibility of a superuser acount by default. Features and functions can be taken from one phone and added to another one. It has also been noticed that the Custom-ROMs run much faster and much more stable than the standard ROMs of the phone. However, changing the ROM results in a loss of the manufacturer provided warranty. This is not a problem for most members of this scene -- also known as "modders" -- since most of them are driven by the wish to be in control of the smart-phone and have total control over the software.

With most Android mobile-phones it is possible to flash a custom ROM, even with the sister model of the Milestone, which was released in the USA under the name "Motorola Droid". Both of the models are identified by the same hardware codename "Sholes", possibly the internal name for the device.

Now for the downside of the Milestone: Motorola restricted large parts of the modification freedom. They have ensured that this model can only load signed ROMs. The signature can only be checked by a special key, hard-coded into the hardware. Because of this we cannot start custom ROMs on the German and possibly on every other Milestone. None of the European customers expected that - and why? It was known that the same device was successfully modified in the USA, the only difference is the radio-module. Of course the internet communities are not happy with this. There have been many discussions in the Motorola Customer Center, Developer Forum and Facebook page about this.

At this point, we'd like to point out that Motorola possibly has some custom software on there, and possibly wants to defend this. Of cource this is just an assumption, since Motorola hasn't released a clear statement towards this, therefore we'll leave this point open. Technically it shouldn't be hard for them to give us an update which frees the boot-loader. We are ready to give our IMEI and the device's serial number to Motorola, to forfeit the warranty and delete the licensed software and in the future refer to their device as a developer phone. The same is possible with the Google's/HTC's "Nexus One". You just have to enter an special command to unlock the boot-loader, then you get a message on the phone, which states that you are forfeiting your warranty, if you continue with the process.

The Official responses from Motorola are saying nothing more to us than: It's not our responsibility to discuss why the American model has an open boot-loader and the European one doesn't have one. To make matters worse, Motorola is saying that they are not going to implement and/or release this "developer function". This raises the question: Is the Droid a Motorola device or not? Since it _has_ this function! Given the difficult situation of Motorola's mobile phone division, to treat American and European customers so differently is beyond our understanding.

Thanks to lengthy trials, the scene has managed to modify some parts of the software, but the elementary parts are still locked for us. Contrary to previous experiences, replacing and modifying the kernel is not possible on the "Milestone". This fact decreases our chances to fix problems, after Motorola stops supporting the Milestone (which is a fairly common practice, when bringing a new device to the market, with the same hardware specs, to push the sales). The Community is more likely to purchase the successor of the Milestone, if they would honor our requests.
What would also have been acceptable for the Community, would be if this fact had been known from the beginning. If this were the case, some of us would not have bought this device, instead they would have chosen one from the competition (This is actually something that Motorola suggests as an alternative).
The customers outside the USA feel handicapped, for a reason.

I just came to this forum to write about the same issues. Except you put it in an adequate manner.

I honestly feel like I got ****ed by the long dick of motorola. I keep seeing literally, everyone having fun installing all kinds of roms and stuff in their droids overclocking them and receiving updates on time from motorola, and here I am, with a ****ty milestone in a country that still hasnt hit 2.0.1. Yea. Not even 2.0.1, so I have a phone that cant take pics ever 24 days.

And to think of we were happy to have multitouch when droid didnt. How silly.

Also its sad to see that the droid section of the forum has over 10 times more posts than the milestone, considering its just in the USA versus milestone being in the rest of the WORLD.

I just came to this forum to write about the same issues. Except you put it in an adequate manner.

I honestly feel like I got ****ed by the long dick of motorola. I keep seeing literally, everyone having fun installing all kinds of roms and stuff in their droids overclocking them and receiving updates on time from motorola, and here I am, with a ****ty milestone in a country that still hasnt hit 2.0.1. Yea. Not even 2.0.1, so I have a phone that cant take pics ever 24 days.

And to think of we were happy to have multitouch when droid didnt. How silly.

Also its sad to see that the droid section of the forum has over 10 times more posts than the milestone, considering its just in the USA versus milestone being in the rest of the WORLD.

Click to expand...

True on everything, except that the Droid has sold probably 5 times or more what the Milestone has done. It was the top selling single smartphone in November, December and January in the US - outselling the Apple, even. It managed to finish second in Q4 (so October to December) despite not coming out until November, and it finished just behind the BlackBerry Curve, which is a family including something like 9 models across every US provider, including many free (on subsidy) models.

Motorola has an unqualified WIN with the Droid, and every reason to support it to the max. That done, all of us bought the European/world version of the same phone, expecting all of the same goodness PLUS multitouch! Yay! Oh, wait. Motorola screwed us completely. If I drop my phone, I'm buying a Nexus One, or a Desire, or something else.

I will also never, ever buy another Motorola if they don't get this limitation removed. There are just too many other good options out there to get seduced by a girl who doesn't... I mean, by a PHONE that doesn't deliver the all of the goods.

I will also never, ever buy another Motorola if they don't get this limitation removed. There are just too many other good options out there to get seduced by a girl who doesn't... I mean, by a PHONE that doesn't deliver the all of the goods.

Click to expand...

I will NEVER buy a motorola ever again, I come from a line of nokias and they have never screwed me over like this. I give the camera on my phone great importance, and used to nokias quality regarding photography (Carl Zeiss lenses) landing onto such a lousy camera (grainy at all times, bugged autofocus, dark half of the time) is highly disappointing. Also the way they push updates is plain ridiculous, they are still evaluating (yes, EVALUATING) if they are going to release the 2.0.1 or 2.1 in my area (Argentina), so until they decide wether or not push an update that shouldnt even be necessary if they ever tested their devices before shoving them to people Ill be with a poorly battery efficient non working camera smartphone.
So yea, if I could, Id give up the physical keyboard for a Nexus One, I trust HTC way more.

was wondering if we could all start a campaign to get motorola to change their policy, this website has quite a large amount of users so if we can put something on the main website, and possibly others it might create a large enough reason for motorla to do something about it?

I would want to buy (import it to my country) and use the Milestone... from what is being said, does it mean that we cannot 'overclock' the processor since we cannot load a custom ROM? As I understand, the overclock works only for custom ROM or changes done to the kernel right? Sorry, noob here. Thanks for any answers on this.

Am a bit bumped by what I am reading since it is so different from my current G1/HTC Dream phone.

I have a Telus Milestone that I use on AT&T's 3G network
[(WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900 ]
do the limitations mentioned above apply to my Milestone model as well?
If I understand this correctly, I am unable to install all the ROMs available in this forum on my model?

I would want to buy (import it to my country) and use the Milestone... from what is being said, does it mean that we cannot 'overclock' the processor since we cannot load a custom ROM? As I understand, the overclock works only for custom ROM or changes done to the kernel right? Sorry, noob here. Thanks for any answers on this.

Am a bit bumped by what I am reading since it is so different from my current G1/HTC Dream phone.

Click to expand...

That is correct, you will not be able to overclock the Milestone or mod it substantially at all. You will be able to root it but that's only if you have a non-Canadian Milestone. Also, rooting only allows a few nice things (ie. WiFi tethering etc) but as I said, no substantial mods and certainly no custom kernels.

I have a Telus Milestone that I use on AT&T's 3G network
[(WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900 ]
do the limitations mentioned above apply to my Milestone model as well?
If I understand this correctly, I am unable to install all the ROMs available in this forum on my model?

Click to expand...

As I just wrote above, you won't be able to install any custom ROMs unfortunately. In fact, the Telus Milestone released in Canada is not even rootable.

If you don't like this, write to Motorola (official Motorola support forums, Motorola facebook site, etc), write to sites like Phandroid, Engadget, write to whatever tech blogs you like and help raise awareness.

This issue needs to be addressed because they've purposely left the Droid unlocked, and locked down the Milestone (and they have admitted this is the case, but refuse to say why.) Why is the USA released model getting special treatment?

WOW... I did not realize the Milestone was so restricted and that Moto would purposely screw so many customers (though it comes as no surprise to me)... This along with a few other things that have come out recently has affirmed my decision that my Droid will be the LAST Moto phone I ever buy and likely the last Moto product in general... The Droid already was the first Moto product to be allowed in my house in over 5 years (and first Moto phone in almost 7 years)... This is what I get for giving them another chance and going against my better judgment.... Looks like it's back to HTC as soon as they release a Android device I like!!:icon_ banana:

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